Follow Swell down the Pacific Coast Highway on our “South Bay to South of the Border” ISD mission.

We loaded up the van at 4:30 am in Dana Point, to arrive at the Manhattan Beach Pier for our first rendezvous with a Surfrider beach clean-up. From there we headed south to Huntington, and on to Surfrider headquarters at the Rusty/Surfing house in Newport where Nate Yeomans and Damien Fahrenfort kept us entertained with their banter and BS.

Our next stop at Second Reef surf shop in Laguna offered even more comic relief. Shop manager/legend Brad Burdick and friends threw on their bandito garb for a session at Thalia Reef.

Another Laguna loc, Porter Hogan hopped in the SWELL Van for the second leg of the journey, and launched airs across international borders. Our local San Clemente stop proved most productive. A host of groms and goonies awaited us eager to scavenge the sand and sea wall for trash, like squirrels preparing for winter. They fully cashed in on the “trade trash for tees and dvds” promo we offered.

A quick stop at Trestles proved that the wind stayed calm, so we jammed down for burgers and 5 hour energy drinks in Cardiff, where Reef sandals rallied another impressive clean-up and BBQ. A gang of Swell fan-ettes posed for photos with their trash like trophies, and we were off to Mexico.
We battled some heavy traffic with heavy metal, and landed in Tijuana in time for one last surf and clean-up. Some local bros grabbed their rakes and set the pace as we cleaned up some unfiltered runoff pipes. After a quick rap session with some federales at a taco stand, border traffic was our last obstacle. We hit home just before midnight burnt-out but satisfied in completing our mission to clean-up and surf across three counties and two countries.

A special thanks to The Surfrider Foundation for inspiring us, and all the beach clean-ups around the world. Enjoy the video recap on International Surfing Day 2011.